Maybe It's You

by Candace Calvert

  “Seriously?” Zoey’s brows pinched, making the small metal piercing glint in the lamplight. “Just like that?”

  “Yeah. But they didn’t figure on the low tide.”

  The blue eyes met Sloane’s over the top of the kitten’s head. “Or on you.”

  “I didn’t save him,” Sloane said, immediately reminded of that awful meeting with Micah. “I just brought him home.”

  Zoey smirked. “Seems to be a pattern with you.”

  “Not really.”

  This girl didn’t need to know how far from the truth it was. Sloane could recite the names of a dozen people who’d swear on Bibles they’d never met anyone as self-centered, cagey, and irresponsible as Sloane Wilder. If someone else hadn’t stepped in when she dropped the ball, Marty would have gone from grocery sack to the shelter’s gas chamber. Sloane had told the marketing man the truth. She was no hero.

  “You think my clothes are dry?” Zoey gave the cat one last pat as he hopped down. She sat up, grimacing as she stretched out her leg.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That scrape on my hip. A little sore.”

  Zoey had refused to let the ER physician examine it. Wouldn’t even lower her jeans a few inches. When Sloane offered her a shower—and use of the washer and dryer—the girl initially said no. Sloane hadn’t pushed, simply pulled out some clean sweatpants and a T-shirt and laid them on the couch. “Did you soap that abrasion in the shower?”

  “I tried.” Zoey stretched the waistband on the sweatpants and peered at her hip. “It’s sort of red. Swollen, maybe. Hard for me to see.”

  Sloane hesitated, then told herself the worst that could happen would be for Zoey to tell her to butt out and head back to the highway. Sloane would be out some comfort clothes but free from this awkward evening. “I could look at it for you.”

  “No need.”

  “Whatever . . .”

  Sloane wondered if she’d been as stubborn at Zoey’s age, then wondered why she’d even wondered. Of course she was. Stubborn, secretive. A rule breaker. She’d have successfully blackened four bedroom walls if her stepfather hadn’t confiscated the spray paint. And then all the black Sharpie pens she’d stolen from school.

  “I have some bacitracin,” Sloane offered. “And Band-Aids so your jeans won’t rub against it. Suit yourself. But two hours on a bus seat . . .”

  “Okay.” Zoey stood and surprised Sloane by hiking the sweatpants down just enough to expose the spot, high on her hip. “Does it look infected?”

  “It’s definitely red,” Sloane told her, less impressed by the abrasion than by a scarlet-and-black tattoo, boldly inked at an angle across the girl’s pale skin. It was only partially visible because of her tight clutch on the fabric, but Sloane could make out twin dollar signs and lettering that spelled PROPERTY OF—

  “I don’t see any pus,” Sloane said quickly. “I’ll put some ointment on it.”

  “I’ll do it.” Zoey let the waistband snap back into place. “Is all that first aid stuff in the bathroom?”

  “Yes. In the cabinet below the sink,” she confirmed, dozens of questions swirling in her brain as she watched the girl amble toward the hallway. She was an enigma at the very least.

  Zoey had revealed next to nothing about herself, but more and more Sloane was getting a feeling about her. And it was troubling. Like the way she explained away leaving the ER because she couldn’t pay, yet it had been only moments after the police arrived. Or the fact that she’d never mentioned family. Or the too-convenient—hard to trace—last name of Jones. Now the tattoo.

  PROPERTY OF . . .

  Sloane walked toward the kitchen, the memory coming back. That voice, so deep to a small child’s ears. Stale breath, lips too close, hands inescapable . . .

  “You’re my little angel. You belong to me. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Her hand trembled as she opened the kitchen cupboard and reached for a plastic tumbler. Then looked up. The wineglasses, on that shelf above the rooster canisters, beckoned like a sliver of light beneath the door of a dark closet. Their shiny surfaces whispered escape was possible; secrets would drown. It would always be that way for someone like Sloane. So why not—?

  “My clothes were dry,” Zoey said, walking through the doorway wearing them. Her hair had dried too, shiny, clean, and piglet pink. “I’m beat, though.” She yawned. “Seriously whipped. Is there an extra blanket, maybe a pillow? For the couch?”

  “Sure.” Sloane closed the cupboard harder than necessary. “Right. I’ll get them.”

  “Thanks.”

  She had to stop herself from jogging from the kitchen.

  There was a bus to Bakersfield at 6:30 in the morning. The fare was nineteen dollars one-way. Sloane would spring for a cab to the station too. It was worth it. There was no way she could drive through the merciless LA traffic and make it to work on time. Sloane was still on probation and, considering the whole lawsuit-threat situation, this was not the time to ruffle the feathers of the powers that be. She frowned, remembering Micah’s term. For all she knew, he’d already told them he saw her with the runaway patient. She sighed and pulled a blanket and pillow from the hall closet shelf. What would be would be.

  She’d done what she could for this girl. Very soon Zoey really would be gone.

  What’s that?

  The clock read 2:30 when Sloane jerked awake in darkness. It took her a full minute to remember about Zoey. And the entire walk to the kitchen to get her galloping heart settled back down.

  “Oh, sorry.” Her guest looked up from the small sponge-painted table. “Hungry.”

  “That’s . . .” Sloane’s gaze skimmed the open cupboards. “No problem.”

  “Are you, like, a food hoarder?” Zoey pointed at the sliding pantry doors that occupied the small space between living room and kitchen. “There’s three shipping boxes of cereal in there.”

  “No.” Sloane’s face warmed. “I mean yes, there are.”

  She had a sudden image of Paul, when she finally ended that relationship, hauling his things from her house in General Mills boxes.

  “Well, you got gypped.” Zoey poked a spoon around in the bowl. “Or do you special order Lucky Charms without the marshmallows?”

  “No.” Sloane hesitated, then told herself she was never going to see this kid again. What did it matter? She settled onto a chair. “I pick them out of the boxes. Because I don’t like them.”

  “If you don’t like that kind, then why—?”

  “I won the cereal in a contest when I was six. A lifetime supply.” Despite a wave of queasiness, Sloane smiled at the incredulous look on Zoey’s face. “Yes. That would be twenty-six years of cereal. So far. Actually, they owe me one shipment. I should be getting another box any day now.”

  “What kind of contest?”

  “Uh . . .” Sloane suddenly wished she’d admitted to hoarding. “Beauty pageant.”

  “For real?” Zoey’s gaze skimmed Sloane’s face, lingering, it seemed, on the scar. “Sure. I can see that. You are great-looking.” She spooned up some soggy cereal. “You mean those pageants where they put tons of makeup on kids? Fake teeth and hair and then make them act all flirty and age inappropriate?”

  “Shake that sweet little booty, Angel. . . .”

  “It was a long time ago,” Sloane said, hearing the strain in her tone. She was getting a headache.

  Zoey chewed for a moment. “The truth is, I came in here looking for a drink. A bottle of wine. Or a beer.”

  “You don’t look nineteen, let alone twenty-one.”

  Zoey shrugged. “I always get that.” She glanced toward the cupboard. “You have wineglasses.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “My luck. I’ve got to bunk with a straight edge.”

  Sloane nearly laughed aloud at the irony, then started to say Zoey didn’t have to be here at all. And that if anyone had a right to complain, it was the person not getting any sleep because—

  “You’
ve been really decent to me,” Zoey said, the sarcasm gone. She blinked up at Sloane, a drop of milk on her chin. “That doesn’t happen much.”

  Sloane’s throat tightened.

  “I’ll be seventeen on Christmas Eve,” Zoey added, her voice not much above a whisper. “I won’t be watching the mail for a card from my family—it’s not too great there. It’s not great away from there either. I just do what I have to. To get by.”

  “Like thumbing a ride to Bakersfield,” Sloane said, certain there was so much more to the story. She knew she’d never hear it; this child had already learned to drown secrets. “To stay with a friend. And work at the YMCA.”

  “Right.” Zoey touched a fingertip to a marshmallow charm on the cereal box. “We can’t all be beauty queens.”

  Sloane was up well before dawn, thinking she would use the bathroom first; Zoey might want to shower again this morning. After seeing the girl wolf down that cereal, she was toying with the idea of scrambling some eggs, toasting a bagel. She’d send her unexpected guest off with a decent meal in her stomach. Sloane thought she had enough eggs in the fridge. She’d better check.

  Still in her pajamas, she padded barefoot from her bedroom past the open bathroom door and down the darkened hallway. Then paused at the entry to the still-dark living room, seeing lights on in the adjoining kitchen.

  Marty meowed, wrapping himself around her leg.

  “Shhh,” Sloane whispered, reaching down to lift him into her arms. He bumped his head beneath her jaw, purr rumbling. She squinted toward the couch as her eyes adjusted. Nobody sleeping there, just the rumpled mound of pillow and blanket.

  “Zoey?” she whispered, peering toward the kitchen. “You up?”

  She crossed the short stretch of wood flooring, then stood in the empty kitchen, confused.

  “Zoey?” she called again, turning in a circle to look around the tiny living space as if it were remotely possible to have missed her somewhere. She ignored an anxious prickle, set Marty down, and was about to go check the front porch and driveway when she saw it on the kitchen table.

  The rooster flour canister, its lid upside down beside it.

  “I just do what I have to. To get by.”

  Her stomach sank at the obvious. Zoey had ripped her off.

  Eight hundred dollars for the rent—due in three days. A week’s grocery money and some extra cash Sloane intended to use for the cab and bus ticket. About a thousand dollars total. And . . . She walked to the table and peered into the empty canister.

  Mom’s necklace. The engagement ring.

  She groaned aloud.

  Could she really have been so stupid? She couldn’t have moved it to her bedroom? Or—

  There was a note.

  Sloane reached for the paper lying beside the canister. It was nearly glued to the tabletop by a soggy glob of cereal.

  IOU

  Z.

  Find a better hiding place. You don’t look like the cookie-baking type.

  9

  “MISSING SUPPLIES.” Sloane lowered the department memo, looked at Harper, and frowned. “Great. I worked that day.”

  “We both did. Word is, the instrument set was missing from the room where we put that girl from the parking lot.”

  Sloane’s lips tensed.

  “You have to admit it looks suspicious that she ran off,” Harper added.

  Almost as suspicious as an empty flour canister.

  There was no way Sloane was going to admit that one. Definitely not to the police. A theft report could start them digging around, and law enforcement agencies were only a computer click apart nowadays. The freeway accident investigation in San Diego was ongoing, and Sloane didn’t want to be questioned about it again. She’d worked too hard at dodging Paul and those mobsters chasing him—and chasing me? Were they? The SDPD detectives tried to make that connection and she’d done her best to act clueless. If they got wind that she’d changed her name, it would wave another red flag. No, she wasn’t going to report Zoey’s theft. Losing the money and the valuables was a gut punch and a hardship. But it was better to take a financial hit than risk becoming the target of a much-scarier one.

  “Hey,” Harper told her, “don’t look so worried. It’s a reminder memo, not a pink slip. Besides, I’m the one who yanked you out of the room to get ready for our stabbing victims. You didn’t exactly have time to tidy up. I’m sure most of us have accidentally donated an LA Hope hemostat to the local roach clip collectors.”

  Roach clips. Hemostats could hold burnt-down marijuana joints. Paul had joked more than once that he knew folks who’d be very happy if Sloane could slip a few of the surgical instruments into her purse.

  Were drugs Zoey’s game? Sloane didn’t want to believe that.

  “I don’t think one light-fingered patient will take you off the Face of Hope nomination list,” Harper teased, moving out of the way of a tech pushing a mobile X-ray machine. “Rumor has it your name’s on Prescott’s radar.”

  Sloane frowned, refusing to entertain the idea of another bout with the marketing man.

  “Well, I don’t have the time for rumors. Or the interest,” she said, regretting her tone instantly. “Sorry. I had sort of a rough night. Not a lot of sleep.”

  There was kindness in Harper’s eyes. “And now you’re picking up extra shifts.”

  “A few.”

  Until I make up for the stolen cash.

  For the first time in a long while, Sloane wished she had someone she could confide in and trust, even with the secrets that refused to drown. Someone who could handle the truth and not run the other way.

  “I get that about extra shifts,” Harper told her. She glanced down at her iodine-stained running shoes. “That’s why these glamorous feet are posing for the camera. Bills to pay.”

  “Right.” Sloane looked at the memo again. “I’m just lucky they don’t garnish pay for missing supplies.”

  “For sure.” Harper shook her head. “You know, I didn’t get that sense about her. But then I guess we can’t always understand what people are dealing with.”

  Micah had watched Sloane walk from the ER to the hospital gift shop, make a selection from the display of energy bars, and then head through the lobby toward the main exit. He’d decided to talk to her about Zoey Jones and had almost intercepted her a couple of times but stopped himself. He liked to think it was out of caution and respect for hospital decorum. He certainly wasn’t going to admit to outright cowardice. Now Sloane was walking toward her car in the parking lot. A dark-green Volvo.

  He’d noticed it before because his parents always had Volvos; Micah had learned to drive in one. Sloane’s was an older model with borderline tires, paint that said it had been parked on the coast for a time, and a collage of bumper stickers. They were thickly layered, some peeling and faded, and proclaimed the whole gamut of boasts, credos, and causes, from “My kid is an honor roll student” to Mary Kay, Bruins Mom, and even Greenpeace—fighting for space with the NRA. Obviously not all Sloane’s doing. More likely they were part of the car’s history and not hers. But the stickers made Micah all the more aware he knew next to nothing about this woman, except—

  “Are you following me?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “No.” The look in her eyes was more gunfire than Greenpeace. “But I did want to talk with you for a minute.”

  “That’s about all the time I can spare. I have a . . . class.”

  “No problem.” He wished she weren’t so beautiful; his usual skill with words failed every time he got close. “It’s about Zoey Jones. I saw you with her last night.”

  Sloane waited. Like a sniper lining up a shot.

  “What you do on your time off is none of my business,” Micah hurried to say before she could. “Or the hospital’s, really. Though, since you’re an employee, you should consider—”

  “What?” Her eyes narrowed a fraction.

  “She gave false information. All of it, from what we can tell. Her address, bir
th date, and even her name.”

  Sloane’s lips flattened.

  “And it appears she may have taken some hospital equipment,” Micah added, almost wishing Sloane would say something. There was no way to tell what she was thinking.

  “Which means she isn’t worth the price of a meal?”

  “I . . .” Words, c’mon. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Wait, now I get it,” Sloane continued before he could. “Helping someone like that doesn’t fit with the image of Los Angeles Hope. You know, that pesky mission of mercy and hope.”

  “No one is saying that.”

  “Of course not.” Sloane pinned him with a look. “Hospital image wasn’t even discussed when you told Fiona and ‘the powers’ that you saw me eating tacos with a liar and a thief.”

  “I didn’t tell anyone,” Micah said, remembering the moment when Coop thought he’d recognized her. He realized he’d felt a need to protect Sloane then. And again today when he’d opted not to say anything to the PIO. The idea that this nurse could need his protection seemed ridiculous. And exactly when had he moved from irritation to concern? “Besides,” he finished, “you didn’t know then what you know now. About her.”

  “And if I had known? I should have—what? Notified the police?”

  “Maybe. Or found another kind of help. If she needs that.”

  The warning flush rose on her cheeks. “You’re going to tell me there are social services for things like that, right? Or churches? Maybe your church, even? Good folks who go once a month to hand out sandwiches and clean socks to the homeless—then out to IHOP afterward to eat waffles with whipped cream and pat themselves on the back.”

  “Sloane . . . hey . . . ,” Micah tried, but there was no stopping her.

  “You’re right. I didn’t know anything about that girl. But I’ve known about you all along. Slick, charming, with all the right words to get exactly what you want. Your agenda, your priorities. That’s all that counts. People like Zoey are a waste of your time—worse, an embarrassment. A stain on your spotless, high-achieving record.”